ST. LOUIS – A fiery competitor who admittedly doesn’t always handle failure as well as he’d like, Cardinals star third baseman Nolan Arenado made up his mind a few weeks back that he would do everything in his power to keep his team in the race for a Wild Card slot and still be a good teammate if St. Louis fell out of it.

For one more night, at least, Arenado hasn’t had to worry about the doom scenario while seemingly trying to will the Cardinals back into the hunt for a playoff spot with more late-game heroics.

A week after hitting a walk-off grand slam to key a win over the Brewers, Arenado drilled a ball up the middle to give the Cardinals a much-needed 4-3 victory over the Padres at Busch Stadium. The game-winner came on a night when Arenado twice ranged to his left and made stellar defensive plays for a Cardinals club that came into Wednesday seven games back of the final National League Wild Card slot.

“I didn’t have the greatest at-bats today, and [Padres closer Robert] Suarez has a great arm, so I just tried to shorten up, barrel it and not try to do too much,” Arenado said. “Our young guys [Masyn Winn and Victor Scott II] had great at-bats, and it’s about time I picked them up.”

Arenado, 33, has been the one needing to be picked up most of the season because of how he has allowed losses to eat at him, and he admitted that it’s almost stomach-turning to think about the Cardinals potentially missing the playoffs a second straight season. When the Cards went 71-91 in 2023, Arenado admittedly caved to the failure, allowed the losing to batter his body language and sap some of the life out of his baseball soul. On Wednesday, he admitted that he was wrong for that, and he is vowing to be better regardless how the rest of the season plays out.

“What I’ve come to realize is that if I’m not going to perform well, I’m definitely not going to be a cancer in this clubhouse to anybody,” said Arenado, who drove in his 61st run and raised his batting average to .271 with a two-hit night. “I’m still going to try to help. I mean, I can still lead in different ways. It may not be with performance, but I can still help these guys out, spend time with them and get to know them.

“The young guys, with their energy, it’s helped me to perform better because I just want to compete with them and enjoy it. I’m trying to get lost in the competition and not be too worried about what my numbers say. I know they’re not where I want them to be, but I can’t change it overnight. I want to go out there and compete and whatever happens, happens.”

Even though he’s been lacking much of the power production that became almost a given in his career for a seven-season stretch in which he had at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs (sans the COVID-shortened season), Arenado has worked to try and contribute in other ways. He has used more of the field this season, spraying hits the other way. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol saw a lot of that adaptability in the final at-bat when Arenado shortened his swing and pounded the ball through the infield for the game-winner.

“He’s always going to find a way to compete and deliver,” Marmol said of the Cardinals’ eight-time All-Star. “I understand what is said about his pull-side homers and driving the baseball as we’ve seen in the past, but he’s still going to give you a competitive at-bat. He’s not going to give in and he’s come through well for us of late. His at-bats continue to look better, so I’m encouraged by that.”

Arenado said he has been driven through this four-game series to try and match the production of Padres counterpart Manny Machado. The superstar third baseman homered in each of the first two games of the series, and he robbed Arenado of hits on multiple occasions with stellar defensive plays. Trying to match Machado has kept him grinding, Arenado said.

“He's playing at a high level, and it kind of sucks to give him balls and hit him balls, and he's making plays on me,” Arenado joked. “He's a stud, he's one of the best in the game, and I have the utmost respect for him. He's someone that for most of my career, I paid attention to. Out of all the third baseman, it was [Adrian] Beltré and [Manny] Machado. He's a stud."